Student - “Mr. Woytowich, why are teachers so mean?” Me - Well, I don’t know. Can you tell me more? How are teachers being mean to you? Student – “I told __teacher___ that I was finished all my work and she got me more work to do. That’s not fair. I worked hard to get everything done way ahead of time and now she just gave me more work.” Me – I understand where you are coming from. Without seeing the assignments, though, I’m tempted to say – your teacher has more in mind than busy work or adding to your to-do list. Maybe your teacher is focused on learning at school and not collecting “A grades” on a piece of paper.
I had this discussion today, and it went on for much longer than what I’ve detailed here. However, this conversation left we wondering where we lost track of the heart of school. Students are (by no fault of their own) working on a to-do list of activities and putting in the minimal effort needed to complete their to-do lists. They finish up their tasks and consider their job done – whether they’ve learned anything or not. But school should not be about completing a list of assignments and then assuming students know and understand the information because they completed tasks. Especially in a world of AI – we should never assume a student’s mastery strictly based off on-time completion of ‘stuff’.
I am not writing this to complain but rather to challenge us all, me included, to do better. I wrote in last week’s post that grades are not accurate, helpful, or even needed. In fact, grades are most useful for informing whether or not teachers are doing their job. If my class has good grades I must have done my job correctly. At best, test scores tell us who can handle high-pressure situations and who is good at memorizing ‘stuff’. Assignments are excellent at telling us who can use A.I., copy answers, or complete checklists of work. On a side note, assignments could be excellent examples of student learning, understanding and knowledge of content – maybe yours are – but often they are not and the emphasis is almost always on achieving the highest grade and not learning. Even when assignments are aiming to accomplish these goals – our students view them as a means to an end, a grade, and an item on the to-do list.
So what are we really grading and what do all these grades really mean? If you said - how well students can write, how good their executive functioning skills are, or if they are good at regurgitating information – you are correct. That is exactly what we are grading. I am using extremes to make a point but the question remains - what SHOULD grades be measuring? In my opinion, they would ideally measure mastery of a grade-level topic or subject. They would measure whether you have mastered, not-yet mastered, or are working on the knowledge set.
The good news is that they can measure this. The even better news is that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of teachers who have done away with traditional grading as set out in 1892 by the Committee of Ten. Through mastery learning paths, focus on revision, withholding or not distributing grades until unit completion, and more we are putting the emphasis back on learning.
What should grades measure? -Mastery of a grade level topic or subject. - Depth of knowledge and mastery/not-yet mastered
Learning to learn and to find future success is what we all really want our students to do. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way our students learned how to school and think that they have learned how to
learn. While our students are not completely wrong it is our duty to show them a better way that will help them become the 21st Century citizens we need. Until we can get rid of grades altogether – we will always have this problem. What we can do is work within the rules/guidelines to not accept anything short of mastery. We can push our students to do better, try harder, and focus more on acquiring knowledge and understanding. We can create assignments that are magnetic and draw in students – causing them to put time, effort, and passion into the projects/assignments and look back having learned the content because they dove so deep into it.
I was doing some professional development reading last week and stumbled upon the idea of wrapping assignments and exams/tests with a reflective paper. Students needed to reflect on the growth and learning. Although not the whole solution to the problem of grades – it is a step in the right direction – and a step in bringing learning to the forefront of our students’ minds.
If any of this resonated with you I suggest checking out mastery based learning. A few great resources and professional development groups that will back you and walk you through the training process are Modern Classrooms and TeachBetterAcademy. I have been a part of both of these communities for years and can verify that these things work and these groups will support you well past implementation of mastery based learning, student directed learning, self-paced learning, or whatever pieces (or whole) you leave with.
Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you were challenged and inspired. Have a great week!
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